Spring Blossoms
by midnightneverland
Summary: Another season and Chloe is still gone. Life keeps going. Max is still coming to terms with that, with Warren by her side. Companion to Autumn Storm and Winter Wind.
1. Chapter 1

The bare branches shake in the breeze. There is a promise of spring lingering in the lapses of warmth—pollen heavy with life, soil drenched from earlier rainfalls. Everything is stumbling from its slumber with wide eyes, reborn, and Max hates it all. She keeps her blinds closed tightly against the sunlight, throws shoes at her window when the birds chirp their morning songs. She sleeps with her earbuds in, drowning the sound of her dorm as it settles into sleep at night, drowning Chloe's voice that still murmurs at the back of her mind. There are other voices, too—her own shrieks, hard and raw against the taunts of a man swallowed in white light, and slips of memories from previous timelines, skipping like a broken record in her recent memories. Sometimes, she can't keep track of it all.

She will reach for Warren's face, thumb brushing against soft unmarked skin, and wonder when the black eye healed. He tenses at her touch, as if he is too afraid to pull away but too afraid to let her. She can't tell him the difference, though she has tried. The words stick against the roof of her mouth and she is almost positive he thinks she's hallucinating. She wants to tell him to run, even wonders why he hasn't already and she screams at him inside her head.

But his eyes are gentle and he tugs her outside for a walk in the warming sunshine. The sun against her back feels much too hot and she's afraid that if she stands too still, she will burst into flames. She walks in tight circles around him; he turns absently to face her as she moves, revolving. He rattles on about some new movie playing and how it is rich with metaphors about nonlinear time travel.

She stops and stares at him, the sudden change causing him to trip. "Yes," she says, grabbing hold of his hands and stares wildly into his eyes and he shuffles backwards again.

She doesn't know if it will give her answers or if she can give him answers, but it is something, an ignition buried deep within her.

He pauses and she can practically see him mentally backtrack for whatever question she is answering.

"The movie. Let's go," she urges and the light-bulb finally goes off.

"Oh," he says and squeezes her hands a little too tightly. She has not felt physical pain for months. She almost welcomes it. The world around her has been laced with eggshells and careful words and she is tired of feeling as if she might splinter into fragments. If only she could break, then she could begin to find the fissures that needed mending.

He drops her hands, realizing his mistake and stutters apology after apology. She is glass, after all, glass and bones and muddy words that slip around her mind.

She punches him lightly on the shoulder, startles him into silence. It is so reminiscent of their older days that he cracks a smile.

"All right, Maximus. Can't deny a woman who knows what she wants," he says but there is a wariness to his eyes.

She turns from him and basks in the harsh sunlight, dropping to the grass below her. He follows her, exhaling with a _hrumph_ as his body hits the ground beside her. She plucks a blade of grass and drops it on to his face, smiling as he sputters and tries to wave it aside. Above them tree branches shake like fists against a cage. Soon they will blossom, fill with fruit, grow, change. They will never stay.


	2. Chapter 2

There's an expiration date, Max realizes, to grieving childhood friends. She's passed it long ago. After classes, the crowd of students parts on each side of her, their eyes focused on anything but her. Doors shut quickly when she heads to her own dorm. The murmurs of condolences, sympathy notes and sometimes food, has now diminished. Now it's time for her to move on, to set aside a childhood she hadn't dwelled on in five years. She wishes she could stretch out her last week with Chloe, jump into it over and over again. There is no expiration date for that.

Chloe is still in her shadow as she walks, skeletal limbs stretching as the sun rises. The days do not get easier. But Max has quickly realized that she is used to it. That is the part that frightens her the most.

Kate prays with her sometimes, shuffling through Bible verses, or they sit drinking tea in silence. Max hates the pity that wells in her eyes and their visits together become less and less frequent. Kate is all heart but the words she sets out before them feel both too false and too literal, as if she is measuring her life in unmarked tablespoons.

She's not sure Warren's company is much better, but he offers no words of wisdom or comfort. He is just there, offering his hand when she needs it, giving her space when she demands it. His silence envelopes her like a warm blanket. When that has grown cold, he fills it with stories of his day, his voice like the distant drumming of rain on a window. And when she slips, when she cracks a jarring joke or smacks him on the forehead to stop him from inserting his foot in his mouth, his eyes light up like they haven't in months.

The movie had been a mistake, though. She can tell that as soon as she sits in her seat, the armrests like traps set before her. The lights dim and the screen glares white. The shutter of a camera is everywhere. When someone snaps back in their seat, the chair cracking loudly beneath them, a gunshot rings through her ears and she bites her lip to keep the screams at bay.

Warren's hands fidget between the armrest, the back of her chair, and his mouth, where he chews on his nails before they settle back into his lap.

She doesn't even remember the movie, which flits through her eyes in dull flashes of color. She is out the door fifteen minutes before it ends, leaning into the cool outside air. The building behind her is a jail and to push through the door feels more liberating than it should.

"Max?" Warren's voice is hushed behind her.

She turns to face him, his eyes searching hers, and the weight that has settled on her heart for so long shifts, pulls loose. It's time.

"Let's get out of here," she says and he leads her back to his car without question. The drive back is heavy in silence and his knuckles are white against the steering wheel. Max fidgets with the flap of her bag, nearly opening it twice, before she tugs it open, a bandage removed from the wound. Her polaroids tumble into her hands, their edges worn from all the times she'd held them. She hands them over to him with numb fingers.

He pulls over at a gas station and flips through them- a picture of her and Chloe smiling, a blue butterfly, one of him posing with Max, his eye black and blue. "What's this?" He whispers. He flips back to the one of him and Max and laughs. "That is one killer black eye. I don't remember this being taken. Or getting a black eye for that matter." He looks up at her with an odd expression. She's seen that expression a thousand times. It's the one he wears when he can't figure out a difficult equation or has messed up on a science experiment. It's bewilderment and frustration and the need to find sense in the nonsense.

The puzzle pieces fall in place. She tells him about her powers, saving Chloe again and again, gaining her best friend back only to lose her. Telling him about the Dark Room is harder and his knuckles are now purple against the fists clenched to his side. When she finishes, her tongue feels like lead in her mouth and her breath is spent.

Second pass, stretching before her like they always do, before he pulls her into his arms and buries his head against her hair. "Max," he whispers, and she can hear the clicking of his tongue as he struggles for words. "I don't know what to say. This is heavy shit. And all this time… Why didn't you tell me?" He pauses and glances at the polaroids he'd placed on the dashboard. "I don't know. It's a little hard to take in, but... I mean, holy shit, Max, time travel? No wonder you've been..."

"Been what?" She mumbles against his shirt and he tenses against her question.

"A little lost, maybe," he says, smiling sheepishly. It's the understatement of the year. "And if he...that son of a bitch." He pulls back from her, slams his hand against the window before calming down again. "You're sure?" She blanches at his question and he rushes to say, "of course, you're sure. I have to research this. I..." He trails off and cups her face in his hands. It's so intense, so personal, that she squirms at his touch, but doesn't pull away. "It's like he took you away from me. I'm so sorry, Max. I'll make sure no one ever hurts you again. If anyone even looks at you the wrong way, I'll punch them in the face."

The déjà vu is so strong that it makes her nauseous. Warren, the white knight, always the defender, timeline and timeline again. Months ago, she would have crumbled, but now, she shifts through the fog and focuses on the moment. She is _here_ , and that is all that matters right now.

He holds her hand the rest of the way home. She isn't sure if she should laugh or cry. She watches the street lamps flash past in streaks of white. She feels a part of herself flashing past as well, timelines converging and dissipating in her mind like stardust.

When he drops her back off at her dorm, he walks her to her room and hovers in the doorway.

"Stay?" She whispers. The thought of facing the darkness once more tonight unsettles her. She knows that sleep will be hard to find.

"Yeah, sure," he says, and again she finds herself in his arms, his voice gentle against the ringing in her ears. He drifts off to sleep before her, his heartbeat keeping her own in check. Six months. She has done the hardest part already, the rest is smoke clearing from the fire. The rest is learning to breathe again.


End file.
